‘But where are you going?’ I asked, bursting into tears.
‘I’m leaving for China. It’s a new frontier that excites me, like how it felt here in the beginning, way back. I’m returning to what I love to do: producing and styling shoots. I can’t deal with all this middle-management crap, all these consultants. I’m not good at it and I’m unhappy. I perform much better at the coalface.’
I stared back, my mouth open. It was as if he had said ‘Rumpelstiltskin’—of course there were new frontiers; the key was to embrace them. Just then there was a soft tap on the door and Katie stuck her head in.
‘Kirstie, the shots from the Dar Hosni/Barbara Hutton shoot are in.’ Noticing my rumpled face, she asked consolingly, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
We had both seen the writing on the wall for a while, especially since Katie was across the budgets. I dabbed at my eyes with a tissue.
‘Get me a job there too,’ I asked Bernard, as I hugged him.
When I went to the art department, the team was gathered expectantly and excitedly around Simone’s screen. Anna had done a magnificent job, using her amazing eye, talent and taste to recreate, in the photographic studio behind our offices, Barbara Hutton’s period of Moroccan decadence. The model, a rising star on the scene, had never looked so beautiful—this would be the start of a dazzling career for her. Simone had already zoned in on two potential cover options and was trying out different colours on the masthead. Alicia came up with a witty coverline to sum up the season. Marie was ticking off which advertisers had been covered in the issue. Katie was sending an email to let the photographer know his retouching budget. I was thinking about a launch party, where we could serve our top clients tiny glasses of Moroccan mint tea, and rosé, wear caftans and have a traditional l’oud player. This type of scene in the art department was the heart of Chic. Then Gordon arrived.
‘Can I see what you’re thinking for next month’s cover?’ he demanded rather than asked.
While it wasn’t a threat, I had a tendency—which was not unfounded—to interpret a question like that from him as one. He looked at the mock-up on Simone’s computer. It was hard to decipher what was going through his brain, but it was probably along the lines of ‘She doesn’t look like those Victoria’s Secrets models I like’.
‘She doesn’t look very friendly,’ he commented, which proved I was right. True fashion people never want any models to look friendly; vaguely approachable was the closest we got to having the models look friendly.
‘Where did you shoot that?’ he asked, clearly mentally calculating how much we must have spent to go to Morocco; wondering if I had put in the forms, as he hadn’t seen any; whether I had blown the budget; and thinking about the round-table lecture I was going to get later.
‘We shot it in the studio, Gordon!’ I said triumphantly.
‘Oh. Well. This proves that you can do every shoot in there from now on,’ he said. ‘I think you should put the image up on the website, and ask people if they like it or not before we decide. Are you going to have a cover line about how to get great hair? Cover lines about sex sell too, you know.’
My team looked crestfallen, and started to shuffle slowly back to their desks. I went back to my office and, for the first time in the history of my working life, shut the door and sat there alone. No, I wasn’t going to put a lame cover line about hair or sex on the magazine. I loved Chic with a passion, but I was tired of compromise.
I started to pack up my belongings: my handwritten notes of thanks from the world’s top designers; framed covers that had resulted in spectacular sales; awards for excellence we had won over the years, due mostly to the work of a small band of dedicated creatives and businesspeople with vision. I wanted to achieve this all over again, and feel that same sense of excitement that I had at the beginning. And why not? From what I could see, the doors to a new era of publishing were wide open.
Acknowledgements
Many, many thanks to Megan Hess, and to my publisher Sally Heath for her always charming encouragement.
VICTORY BOOKS
An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited
11–15 Argyle Place South, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia
[email protected]
www.mup.com.au
First published 2013
Text © Kirstie Clements, 2013
Illustrations © Megan Hess, 2013
Design and typography © Melbourne University Publishing Limited, 2013
Author photography © Carlotta Moya
This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers.
Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher.
Cover design by Megan Hess
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Clements, Kirstie, author.
Tongue in Chic / Kirstie Clements.
9780522864779 (pbk)
9780522864823 (ebook)
Fashion—Fiction.
A823.4
Tongue in Chic Page 14
